The Republicans ALLOWED it to be struck down by the courts – they did not run a recall campaign on the judges and run the case again.

Possible problem:

Was Prop. 187 struck down by a Federal judge or a state judge?

Federal judges can only be removed through the impeachment process. Such a removal does not automagically allow the re-opening of an incompetently-decided case. To overturn it, it would be necessary to convince the Ninth Circus Court of Appeals that the trial court misapplied the law. (Which IMHO they did if they found a fundamental right to government benefits, that being neither here nor there…)

If it was a state court, then all bets are off. I don’t know as much as I could regarding the California state court system.

I’ll admit being hazy on the details- I was in high school at the time, in a public high school, and the case was fodder for class discussions. However you know where I grew up and can understand that such a discussion probably shed more heat than light.

(Immigration discussions in the US are like that: on one side the core argument is “Dirty Mexicans took our jobs!” and on the other “Open borders! No controls! Libertarian purity or bust!” occasionally mixed with some politically-correct multi-culti nonsense. A sensible discussion in an open uncontrolled forum is well-nigh impossible.)

FWIW, if Prop. 187 were sustained but nothing else changed, IMHO CA would still be screwed. As with alcoholics, recovery is not impossible but they’ll need to hit bottom first before they themselves see the need to pull their heads out. And IMHO, any aid at all to CA before such a crash would be no more than enabling behavior.

Some of this money was their own (which they can waste in any way they see fit), but a lot of the money (at least for Carley) was not her own – it was national Republican money.

I do not think the newly elected Governor of New Mexico went around doing this (and New Mexico has a higher percentage of hispanics than California does).

The only thing that can be said, with justice, is that neither Carly or Meg were hispanic themselves.

Other than that they ideally fit the bill of the “moderate” candidate. Rich (that tripped up Meg – when it turned out her servant was an illegal, Redneck Republicans do not have servants so at least a Redneck candidate would not have had that problem).

And comming out with all the correct “moderate” policies (to the despair of Glenn Beck – who went out to California, for a week, some months ago).

It is the place (California) that is no good.

About the only thing that could have saved it is the much attacked Prop that forbad illegal immigrants getting government support or useing government services.

“But that alienated hispanics” – only the wrong sort of hispanics, till the Prop was just accepted by history as evil (including by Meg and Carly – who both said they would not have done this evil thing, whatever it was exactly…….).

“And it was struck down by the courts” – and that is the key point.

The Republicans ALLOWED it to be struck down by the courts – they did not run a recall campaign on the judges and run the case again.

By allowing the courts to rule that there was a “right” to various government services (a right that appears nowhere in the text of the Constitution of California) even for illegals, the Republicans signed their own death warrent.

They also signed the death warrent of the whole State – for who will finance this “right” (for illegals and everyone else) after California goes bankrupt?

“The Feds will help”.

I think the House of Representatives will have other ideas.

There’s something more attractive about being a territory than being a state, or Puerto Rico wouldn’t keep refusing statehood. The fact that most Puerto Ricans don’t have to pay federal income tax may have something to do with it.

Assuming that the ‘no income tax’ thing is true for all US territories (and I have no idea if it is), residents of the ‘Territory of California’ would, in the short term, make out like bandits, with their debts taken over and taxes substantially lowered. Many of them, I think, would think the temporary loss of representation worth it.

Certainly a lot of Americans in other states would think they were getting a better deal than they deserved, leading to resistance to the whole idea of reversion: While the citizens of some states would conclude Californians were getting a better deal than they were and want to revert themselves. So I think ‘onerousness’ is needed both to sell the program and keep it from being too attractive.

As to what that onerousness should be, I’m blowed if I knows; I do think it needs to be something that’ll be felt in the short term because politics is a short-term game. Halving their delegation for twenty years – once they had a delegation again – would be just too far away to be much of a penalty.

California would have to become a state again because its staying a territory after a getting itself together would permanently expand the scope of the federal government beyond the intended limits of our federal system. (I know, I know.) The onerousness is meant to encourage that, and to discourage other states from looking on reversion as an easy solution to their budget problems, and, frankly, to give a little satisfaction to those of us who’ll end up footing California’s bills.

Puerto Rico we can afford to humor because it’s so small.

It seems to me that veryretired’s idea of converting CA into a federal territory is not much different than mine of placing it into some species of receivership. There’s no Constitutional authority for either, but obviously that’s no longer any impediment.

A question for PersonFromPorlock*: Why do you insist that the conditions of territory status be “onerous enough that the inhabitants will want to regain statehood”? Do we really care if they formally become a state again? The residents of Puerto Rico have long been very happy in a “stateless” status; they keep rejecting the idea of applying for statehood whenever it’s proposed to them, and that certainly has had no effect on the rest of us. In fact, by not being a state CA would have no say in federal legislation, which would be extremely positive for the rest of the country.

* Two questions, actually: in addition to the one above, do you mind if I refer to you as just “PFP”? Your nom de web is pretty long!

PersonFromPorlock: yes, but the times and the premise are different, are they not?

Posted by Alisa at November 6, 2010 02:33 AM

Well, they’re always different: I’d say not fatally so in this case. And fortunately, since it’s unlikely that either Mr. Obama or Ms. Palin reads Samizdata, it’s not something we need to settle right now. Cheers!